Toronto Blue Jays Top 40 Prospects

Bloss was taken 99th overall in the 2023 draft out of Georgetown after spending his first three years of collegiate ball at Lafayette College. The Astros promoted him very aggressively; Bloss began the 2024 season at High-A and made his big league debut in June. About a month later, he was traded to Toronto as part of the Yusei Kikuchi deal, and he finished the season at Triple-A Buffalo. Bloss’ performance dipped down the stretch, he carried a bloated ERA at Buffalo, and his 2025 spring performance has been mixed, but remember that not long ago this guy was facing Patriot League hitters, and now he’s staring down Gunnar Henderson. He has mid-rotation ingredients led by a plus slider and riding mid-90s fastball.

Bloss is a high-waisted 6-foot-3 and has incredibly loose, long levers that, along with his big stride down the mound, help him generate nearly seven feet of extension. His fastball tends to only sit 92-95 mph (though Bloss is throwing harder this spring and has bumped 98), but it has nearly perfect backspinning ride. Off of that Bloss works with two distinct breaking balls: an upper-70s curveball with great depth and shape that mirrors his fastball, and a mid-80s slider/cutter that will bend in as hard as 87-88 mph. The slider has tight, late movement, and when Bloss is going good, it has nasty two-plane movement. Bloss also has a changeup that, based on the fluidity of his arm action, should mature to at least average with time, though his curveball’s depth gives him a weapon against lefties right now. There are stretches when Bloss’ delivery is out of sync, which has been a frequent issue during the spring of 2025, leading to more walks than you want to see from a starter on your 40-man roster. Bloss’ fastball shape will allow him to be pretty loose with his in-zone fastball command, but this is the area where he most needs to improve. The rate at which Bloss has developed and (for the most part) succeeded is exciting, and he should entrench himself toward the back of Toronto’s rotation at some point in 2025, and toward the middle of it in the next couple of years.

Nimmala was one of the youngest prospects in the 2023 draft and also one of the most projectable, both because of his big, broad-shouldered frame and because he’s new enough to baseball to merit deeper, skill-centric projection. He struggled mightily with breaking ball recognition as an amateur, and at his size, it seemed feasible that he might also need to move off of shortstop.

In 2024, Nimmala had his ass handed to him during the first several weeks of the season. He was hitting .167 in the middle of May and was demoted to the complex, where his swing was re-worked. It seems to have made a real difference. Nimmala’s leg kick and the position of his hands as they load were both altered. When he returned to the Dunedin roster, he hit .265/.331/.564 and stroked 13 bombs in his final 53 games.

This isn’t to say Nimmala is suddenly a lock to be an everyday infielder. He still struck out 29.7% of the time during his hot second half of the season, which is a scary rate at Low-A. His overall contact rate (69%) also wasn’t great, but there is at least precedent for power-hitting big leaguers to carry a rate that low and still be impact players. Nimmala already hits the ball very hard. He is a ferocious rotator and is able to generate considerable power because of the strength and quickness of his hitting hands, which are gigantic. Nimmala is able to create big power in a relatively short distance, and his swing isn’t overly noisy or hard to maintain. He’s also elevating the baseball at an Andy Pages-esque 21 degrees of launch on average, and he’s often on time to pull the baseball thanks to a strong top hand through contact. Toward the end of the year, Arjun showed glimpses of being able to cover the outer third and drive the ball to the opposite field gap with power.

Nimmala is also a terrific bender for his size and has a shot to remain at shortstop. That said, his feel for throwing isn’t great, his body doesn’t always sequence well from the ground up, and his mechanics can get out of whack. He needs to work on more consistently transferring his weight from one foot to the other, which he struggles with badly on backhand plays. The tools to be an impact power-hitting shortstop are here, and Nimmala will be 19 for basically all of 2025. He was always going to be a slower burn, and now he’s shown that he can pretty quickly make relevant adjustments.

Roden has posted god-tier surface-level stats dating back to college, and he’s done so in pro ball while making several significant mechanical adjustments to his swing. In 2023, he was given Craig Counsell‘s batting stance and a big leg kick, while his hands were lowered closer to his ear in 2024. The changes have helped Roden, who turned 25 in December, to access more power without trading off much contact. He slashed .293/.391/.475 split between Double- and Triple-A in 2024, running a 93% in-zone contact rate and an 83% contact rate overall. His measureable power (37% hard-hit rate, 103 mph EV90) was a shade south of the overall big league average, but comfortably below what is typical for a corner outfielder.

The short-levered Roden is best at accessing his power against breaking balls that finish middle-in. It’s against these pitches that you can really see how much his swing allows him to use the ground to help generate power. Well-executed backfoot breaking balls can be Kryptonite to Roden’s bat path; he often struggles to scoop those, and swings over the top of them. But this spring, he’s dipping deeper into his lower half to go down and reach these pitches. Most importantly, he’s adept at flattening his bat path to cover high fastballs to drive them the other way, and these are the pitches he hunts proactively, enough that he sometimes expands the zone against them. Roden’s proficiency against high fastballs is very important, as many hitters struggle with that particular pitch and are exposed by big league stuff. There’s a chance Roden’s production is front-loaded during his years of control because he’s already 25 and has kind of a boxy build that might be vulnerable to early decline, but he’s clearly worked really hard to improve his conditioning since college and he’s a good, big league-ready hitter with plus contact and plate skills.

Tiedemann had a breakout 2022 pro debut during which he climbed all the way to Double-A and, across just shy of 80 innings, struck out 38.9% of hitters and walked just 9.6%. In 2023, vague arm soreness impacted his workload, and then in 2024, Tiedemann was shelved with a shoulder injury early and blew out his UCL not long after returning from the shoulder issue. He had TJ in late July, putting him on track to miss most or all of 2025.

When he has been healthy, Tiedemann’s stuff has been excellent. He relies heavily on a wicked, mid-to-high-90s four-seamer thrown from a deceptively low lefty arm slot that seems to make hitters in either batter’s box uncomfortable. He pairs it with a huge sweeper that has a boatload of horizontal movement, so much in fact that at times it’s easy for hitters to lay off of it. Still, it’s a great strike-getting weapon because it starts in the lefty batter’s box and finishes on the arm-side corner of the plate. Tiedemann’s changeup is also pretty good, though more because his command of it has progressed; on pure stuff, it’s only fair. He already has two plus pitches and one that pretty comfortably projects to be above average, and even while dealing with arm discomfort in 2023 and 2024, he was able to strike out well over a third of opposing hitters. Aspects of Tiedemann’s delivery are unique in a way that makes him look reliever-y, and repeated years of arm trouble add to that risk, but even if he ends up in the bullpen, he’s going to be such a dominant reliever that he’ll still belong about this high on a prospect list. The 2025 season is Tiedemann’s 40-man platform year, and it will be interesting to see whether the Jays deploy him in the AFL or instructs as a means of determining whether or not to roster him, though doing so would expose him to the eyes of rival scouts who might be foaming at the mouth to pop him in the Rule 5 and see what happens.

Yesavage was an eastern Pennsylvania high schooler (Boyertown, James Develin and A.J. Bogucki‘s alma mater) who matriculated to ECU and carved. He ran a sub-3.00 ERA as a sophomore and junior, and had a top five ERA in college baseball last season. He also struck out 145 batters in 93.1 innings as a junior, a 17-inning increase from his prior season. It would have been more, but Yesavage dealt with a partially collapsed lung late in May. He was back for the college postseason, and while his fastball velocity was down slightly during his duel with Chase Burns (he averaged 92 mph rather than his usual 94), Yesavage looked fine and then flew to the Combine (which he couldn’t have done without a healthy lung). His heater was sitting 96 during Toronto’s 2025 Spring Breakout game against the Twins.

Yesavage has a super vertical release point, nearly seven feet high at release, and is somewhat similar to Oliver Drake in that some of his breaking balls have arm-side action. He’s able to command a mid-80s slider/cutter that looks and plays like either of those two pitches depending on the vertical location (the higher ones act as cutters, the lower ones sliders); he peppers the glove-side edge of the plate with them. His downhill mid-90s fastball has plus carry and misses bats in spite of its plane. It’s a fastball/slider attack versus righties, with more splitters and slower breakers versus lefties. Yesavage’s splitter command isn’t as good as that of his fastball/slider, but the pitch has enough sink and velo separation to sometimes stay out of trouble when it isn’t located well, and it was his nastiest pitch in the Breakout game. A quick-moving no. 4 starter type of prospect, if Yesavage can maintain his stuff across 120-plus innings in 2025, he’ll move into the back of the Top 100.

Rojas signed out of Cuba in October of 2020 and braised in Dunedin for three years, either on the complex or with the Low-A team, before the Jays finally sent him to Vancouver in 2024. Other than a shoulder issue that cost him two and a half months during the first half of the season, Rojas had a very successful 2024. At times after he returned from the injury, he was going six or seven innings deep into starts; by the end of the year, he had a 2.59 ERA and nearly a 5-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio. Combined between the regular season and his Arizona Fall League run (Kendry was one of the better pitching prospects on that circuit), Rojas worked just shy of 80 innings. He enters his 40-man platform year tee’d up to work 100 or so frames, putting him in position to be rostered and then debut in 2026 as a spot starter. Long-term, Rojas’ upside is more in the no. 4 starter realm.

Rojas does a little bit of everything well, though his fastball playability is easily the most impressive aspect of his profile right now. He sits about 93 mph (95-97 during Toronto’s Spring Breakout game) with roughly average life, but he hides the ball well and forces lots of awkward whiffs even when his heater is living in the zone. Rojas’ slider has above-average length, but it breaks pretty early and its angle doesn’t allow it to function as a chase pitch like most sliders. Instead, it plays as a strike-getter. Rojas’ changeup tends to live in more enticing locations, and his ability to locate it consistently is advanced. He isn’t a command maestro, but everything he throws lives in the zone with great frequency. Rojas’ delivery does have some shoulder crunch to it, but for the most part, he fills out the build/athleticism/mechanical checklist of a starter, as Rojas has a prototypical 6-foot-2 frame and a quick arm. He looks like a backend starter right now and has a chance to develop into more of a true no. 4 type if he can find a more enticing breaking ball.

Polanco was one of the more exciting prospects from the 2025 signing class and inked a deal for just shy of $2.3 million in January. He is a low-to-the-ground defender with plus feet, hands, and actions. His arm strength is the lone question mark when it comes to his defense; Polanco is otherwise among the best infielders in the 2025 international class. He has a smaller frame but is muscular and strong for his size. Polanco is twitchy, and his hands are often in the right place at the right time in the batter’s box. A compact athlete with a compact swing, he covers the inner half well. There’s a chance for a plus hit tool and shortstop defense here, with Polanco’s power likely to be below average at maturity due to his lack of size. That still plays at shortstop, especially when the player in question can pick it.

Before he was suspended for testing positive for Clomifene one game into his major league career, Martinez made contact against Triple-A pitching at a rate (65%) lower than all but one qualified big league hitter. Only the likes of Elly De La Cruz and ONeil Cruz are able to add value to a lineup while missing on one out of every three swings. Does Martinez have the same level of juice? It’s certainly not out of the question. At an exceptionally strong 5-foot-11, when Martinez does make contact, he doesn’t waste it. He was on his way to his fourth-straight pro season of 28 or more homers when the league office stopped him at 17 dingers in just 75 games. Martinez hit a ball 115.2 mph in a game last year, and he barrels it, elevates it and pulls it enough to know that his power will be regularly felt. Uncoiling after tucking a high leg kick into his chest, Martinez’s damage largely comes when he can extend his arms on offspeed mistakes up and out over the plate. That he so regularly expands outside of his sweet spot leaves no mysteries as to its boundaries. Though he is able to fight off velocity on his hands with an inside-out stroke, he swings inside a ton of sliders. His low contact rate suggests real Quad-A potential, and that has been the case for a while now, but Martinez has kept it just on the right side of passable across a number of upticks in the breaking ball quality he has seen, and he was striking out less than 24% of the time in Buffalo. For such a young hitter (he just turned 23 last November) who presents such an obvious way to get him out, he’s compiled a steady track record and has accessed his power at every level. Any improvement in his chase, or perhaps a more controlled two-strike approach, could pay huge dividends.

As if a volatile offensive profile wasn’t enough, Martinez is also a strange defensive player. He’s a 40 runner and lacks much feel or athleticism for finishing plays at the end of his range. While his raw arm strength is suitable for third, his funky sidearm whip is a unique way to throw, and he’s often off balance. Errors are a flawed stat, but Martinez made 15 of them in 60 starts at Triple-A split across second and third base. Occasionally, Martinez’s natural way of throwing actually puts him in position to make some great plays, but for the most part, he looks like a below-average defender. This is a prospect of extremes who is hellbent on pull-side power, and will likely accumulate the outer half swings and misses that come with that approach. We think there will be a window of productivity here, but probably a narrow one akin to Franmil Reyes‘ career arc.

In the same year that Billy Wagner was elected to the Hall of Fame after a lengthy wait, his beloved Astros… traded his son Will to the Blue Jays as part of a three-player rental trade for Yusei Kikuchi. Second and third base haven’t been great oases of playing time in Houston and the deadline swap gave Wagner a major league window to be his best hit-over-power self, slashing .305/.337/.451 in 24 games. That rookie success came with a sky-high .359 BABIP, but Wagner’s hit tool is real; he walked more times (61) than he struck out (39) in 83 career games at Triple-A.

Wagner’s lefty swing looks like it was built with the goal of staying on top of one of his dad’s best heaters. Every movement, from his front foot’s stride to the way he tilts the bat off his shoulder and fires his hands, is short and direct, giving Wagner plenty of time to track breakers and still fend off velocity to left-center. There’s average raw power here, but Wagner’s flat stroke isn’t pull-oriented, making 10 homers in a full season of work a good stretch goal for him.

The Jays responded to their sample of Wagner at second base by installing a Platinum Glove winner there instead, but his transition to a bat-first utility type who moonlights everywhere on the dirt but short had already begun in the minors. Lacking range and armed with an unorthodox throwing motion, Wagner is better at first than the other two bases, but the shape of his offensive production will make him a nomad.

Kasevich has posted slightly above-average batting lines at each level, including a 2024 season split between Double- and Triple-A; he is now a career .288/.353/.373 hitter in the minors. Despite that lackluster slugging percentage, Kasevich produces exit velocities near the major league average, and his hard-hit rate prompted a quick check that we didn’t accidentally paste some of Orelvis Martinez’s info into Kasevich’s record over on The Board.

So why isn’t he the top prospect in the system? Other than the spring training stress reaction in his back that has him on the Triple-A 60-day IL to start the season? Part of producing a 95% contact rate, the 10th highest in minor league ball, involves making concessions in service of Kasevich’s opposite field approach. Though he posted an exciting .325/.382/.433 line in 41 games upon a late-season promotion to Triple-A, his fly ball rate dipped below 20% over the same span. The 24-year-old is so good at staying back and tracking offspeed pitches that he occasionally launches a hanger to left, but he otherwise rarely lifts the ball, and his raw power winds up just serving to produce more hard low liners to right-center. Kasevich should really hit for average, but not for meaningful power. He’s also probably not quite an average shortstop. Kasevich isn’t error prone, but he’s a tick below having the typical range and athleticism of a true shortstop, and he throws a few too many inaccurate one-hoppers to first base. Third base has been the alternate position on defense for Kasevich so far, but second base versatility is the logical next step for this prospect’s hit tool-dependent utility profile.

Schreck had perhaps the snobbiest amateur tour possible, going from Harvard-Westlake to Duke and then to Vanderbilt as a grad transfer. He then became one of several recent high-quality Mariners senior signs, inking a deal for $75,000 in the 2023 ninth round. Schreck hit immediately. He crushed High-A in 2024 (though he was older and in a hitter-friendly environment) and was promoted to Double-A not long before the Mariners traded him to Toronto for Justin Turner.

Schreck has a pretty left-handed swing and above-average barrel feel. He’s best able to do damage against middle-middle mistakes and lower pitches, but he doesn’t miss many of those and he’s consistently on time to square up fastballs. Schreck doesn’t have prototypical corner outfielder power. He’s a wiry guy who arguably still has physical projection, but he’s approaching 25 years old and it’s very possible the cement is dry on his strength. He could still be a corner platoon outfielder who succeeds because of his feel for contact and what he brings on defense, led by a huge arm. This profile is typically a 45 FV player, but Schreck’s age creates enough skepticism about his performance to this point that he slides a grade.

Born in Slovakia and raised in Alberta, Macko was a top Canadian prospect when he was scooped up by Seattle in the seventh round of the 2019 draft and came to Toronto in the 2022 Teoscar Hernández trade. His career has largely been defined by injury, so even though Macko has been able to keep his walks under control, his style of pitching and limited innings track record have us projecting him in multi-inning relief. Macko’s recent maladies include a forearm strain (which kept him out from early July to late August 2024) and now a torn meniscus suffered during 2025 spring training, which will keep him out to start the year. Injuries have prevented Macko from working more than 100 innings in any of his six pro seasons; his 93.1 frames in 2024, even amid a seven-week IL stint, were a career-high.

When Macko returned from his forearm issue last year, his stuff was intact. He’s never thrown especially hard, but his deceptive delivery and sneaky uphill angle help it punch above its weight. Macko’s tailing changeup and slow, mid-70s curveball are his nastiest, most aesthetically pleasing offerings. His curveball can be as slow as 70 mph, while Macko’s curt slider can be as hard as 87. The different shapes and speeds Macko uses to attack hitters keeps them on tilt, in part because he deploys his arsenal evenly and unpredictably. That approach is extraordinarily well-suited for an impact long relief role. Macko would more comfortably project as a five-and-dive starter were he able to stay healthy, but six years is a long time to have never worked anything close to 120 innings, and at this point Macko has to prove that’s a thing he can do if he’s going to project as a starter.

Toronto’s Rule 5 pick from Boston, Bastardo had Tommy John in late June of 2024 and was put on the 60-day IL during 2025 spring training. It’s possible he won’t return early enough in the year to satisfy the requirement that he be active for at least 90 days in order for Toronto to keep him permanently; that might have to wait until 2026.

The Red Sox had developed Bastardo as a starter for his entire career but due to his mid-90s fastball’s surprising lack of playability and his below-average control, he has been projected as a reliever here at FanGraphs. Bastardo’s best pitch is his changeup, an 84-88 mph offering that dies as it approaches the plate as if an invisible parachute has popped out of the back of it. He can manipulate his breaking ball’s shape, but he doesn’t land his slider regularly, and Bastardo’s high arm slot is the sort that imparts hittable shape and angle on his fastball. He should be able to reach back for more heat in a one-inning role and bully hitters with even greater velocity. The Tommy John adds risk and delays his debut, but Bastardo had arguably the most upside of any Rule 5 pick in 2024 as a nasty late-inning reliever, and there’s a chance that he could be a late-2025 weapon for the Jays, especially if they can make the playoffs.

Both of Barriera’s professional seasons have been plagued by injury. He had multiple IL stints in 2023 due to elbow and biceps injuries, the latter of which shut him down for the remainder of the regular season in August of that year. He made one 2024 start before he was shut down again, this time to have a hybrid elbow surgery. That’s two season-ending injuries in two years, and by the time Barriera returns, he’ll have barely pitched since the spring prior to the 2022 draft.

Healthy Barriera would touch 97, bend in a good low-80s slider, and command a mid-80s changeup. Between the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Barriera’s body also filled out much faster and less optimally than was expected when he was drafted. Things looked a little better in 2024 before he blew out, but he went from having a narrow, high-waisted build, akin to Cristopher Sánchez’s, to being much thicker in the trunk of his body. Barriera threw his first bullpen back from surgery a couple Fridays before list publication and looked balanced, comfortable, and like he worked hard to stay strong during his rehab. His heater might have more natural cut than before, based on his look in that ‘pen. A 45 FV prospect before this spiral of injuries, we’re just waiting to see what Barriera’s stuff looks like in an actual game before returning him to that grade. For now, he lives in this liminal space that accounts for both his risk and his upside.

Maroudis signed for a sizable $1.5 million in the fourth round in order to eschew a commitment to NC State. Basically skin and bone on the 2022 showcase circuit, he looked meaningfully stronger during the spring of 2023, with fastball velos in the 92-95 mph range more often than the summer before when he would only peak there on occasion. The uphill angle of his heater gives it a shot to play at basically any velo in the 90s, but during his brief pro debut, he was still in that range. Maroudis added a second breaking ball in 2024, and the quality of his new mid-80s slider is better than his amateur look. He also has feel for creating action on his changeup, but not so much for locating it. Maroudis blew out after just a couple of 2024 outings and needed the internal brace style UCL surgery in May. A four-pitch foundation and relatively advanced command of an uphill fastball gives him a starter’s profile, and he could conceivably throw harder coming out of rehab. Maroudis’ surgery was early enough in 2024 that we should get an idea of where he’s at in the middle of 2025.

King was evaluated as a $700,000 to $1 million type of high school arm on our 2024 draft rankings, and ended up getting a shade more than that ($1.25 million) in the third round to eschew a Miami commitment. King is a big-framed, 6-foot-4 lefty with a deceptive rock-and-fire delivery in the low-three-quarters realm. He is very athletic for his size, and his frame and mechanics are very typical of a big league southpaw. King has crude feel for release and his strike quality comes and goes, but he was one of the younger pitching prospects in last year’s draft, and he could still grow into the feel for his body and develop better command. Stuff-wise, he’s working with a low-90s fastball and an average two-planed slurve in the 76-79 mph range. He is among the higher-variance prospects in this system.

Stephen piled up 11 varsity letters at his tiny high school near the Indiana/Illinois border and began his college career at Purdue, where he had ERAs of 5.00 or higher in his first two seasons. He transferred to Mississippi State and had a much better junior year, with a 1.01 WHIP across 16 starts. Stephen has a prototypical starting pitcher’s build at a strapping 6-foot-4. He has a short arm action and an upright lower half throughout his delivery, uncorking with quite a bit of effort and violence about the head. Stephen’s fastball holds its line at the top of the zone and sat 91-95 with Mississippi State last year (he didn’t pitch after the draft). His slider and curveball shapes run together a little bit, but they play nicely off his fastball around the top of the zone. Creating demarcation between his breakers will be a key developmental checkpoint for Stephan and the Jays to hit. His changeup also flashes bat-missing action, giving Stephen the chance for four viable pitches and a backend starter role.

Kinetic on the basepaths despite run times that are a tick below average, and error prone at short despite a smooth infielder’s actions, Paulino contains almost excessive multitudes. Skinny with a power hitter’s scooping stroke and a pretty one-handed finish, the Dominican infielder is also too slight to project much beyond his already nearly average raw pop, though he’s nevertheless paying the going rate when it comes to sacrificing contact (69%) for power production.

Paulino was finally heating up (114 wRC+ at Double-A Portland) when he pulled up with a left leg injury two weeks before he was shipped to Toronto as part of the Danny Jansen trade. As a result, he has played sparingly as a Jay beyond a shaky AFL showing. He’s fond of bending at the waist to lift fastballs thigh-high and middle-in, creating a lane for pitchers to attack him up and away, and perhaps presaging additional struggles against left-handed spin down the road. His solid average throwing arm shines best at third, but Paulino’s multi-positional experience is a clear feature of his future. There is demonstrated double-digit homer potential in a full-time role here, but Paulino’s contact rates have him tracking more as a reserve.

Keys is attempting to become the first Bucknell player since Eric Junge 연지 to reach the majors; he was the first Bison drafted in one of the four major men’s sports since offensive lineman Julién Davenport in 2017, and before that stretch forward Mike Muscala in 2013. The Patriot League school is the only “small” thing about Keys’ profile. Teams were impressed by his physicality and strength at last year’s Draft Combine. He hit .405/.535/.798 as a college junior and then .293/.378/.451 at Dunedin after the draft. Late-season Low-A pitching isn’t usually a great litmus test for the skills of a college hitter, but in the case of small schoolers like Keys, it’s a meaningful first step.

Though he’s a little stiff in the box, Keys creates big power in a short distance, and his swing features lift at the top of the strike zone thanks to how involved he keeps his top hand through contact. His lower body is upright throughout his cut, which may make it tough for him to deal with well-located soft stuff at the bottom of the zone as he climbs the minors. Keys is physically maxed out, and he’ll need a contact and power blend to profile at 1B/3B. Though he’s a decent defender for his size, Keys is a heavy-footed, lumbering sort of athlete with less mobility than the typical big league third baseman. He played a mix of third and first after the draft, and will probably continue to work at both spots so he can play a multi-positional role at peak.

Rogers spent two years at Panola College in Texas (one was the pandemic season) and two at McNeese State, where the 6-foot-7 low-slot righty threw plenty of strikes for two seasons as a starter. A few things have changed here since Rogers entered pro ball. He’s added a second breaking ball and is now willing to elevate his fastball to get whiffs, which wasn’t the case in college. Rogers has an east/west operation created by his sidearm slot. His sinking and tailing fastball has utility on both corners, and Rogers locates both of his breaking balls — a slider and a cutter — consistently. Righties have a hard time picking up his breaking stuff and are often frozen by his in-zone sliders. Granted, Rogers was facing Low-A hitters for most of the year. Though it’s been put on the backburner relative to his college usage, Rogers has a changeup lurking. It’s not a good pitch right now, but Rogers has a loose, whippy arm (especially for a guy his size), and this pitch might find an extra gear in pro ball. Rogers has a real chance to be a big league starter if his changeup can take a leap. If not, vulnerability to lefties might relegate him to long relief. In either case, Rogers is a durable (over 100 innings each of the last two years), high-floored prospect on track to debut in 2027.

Perez has been a steady low-level performer for three years. In 2024, he worked 82 innings across 17 Florida State League starts, posted a 1.06 WHIP, and struck out 86 guys. He now has a 1.08 career WHIP in 175 pro innings combined across rookie ball and Low-A. He isn’t an ultra-athletic or projectable young pitcher (in fact, athletically, Perez is a bit of a Lurch), but he’s polished, he has three serviceable secondary offerings, and he can generate weak contact with each one.

Perez effectively uses a three-quarters arm slot, but he gets to it via spinal tilt. It creates 1:00 axis on his 91-94 mph fastball. A big part of Perez’s effectiveness stems from the quality and utility of his secondary offerings. His low-80s gyro slider is his most reliable finishing pitch and is tough to pick up out of hand, his upper-70s curveball has good depth (it had a 37% CSW% in 2024 thanks to its in-zone effectiveness more than the whiff part of that metric), and he can very occasionally create bat-missing arm-side action on his changeup. Perez is more like 210 pounds or so rather than his officially listed 170; he lacks overt physical projection and is a fairly stiff, below-average athlete. He probably doesn’t have a terribly high ceiling, but his repertoire depth and feel for location give him a pretty high floor. Were he a draft-eligible player, Perez has the kind of stuff that would go in the third to fifth round as a low-variance backend starter prospect.

Rojas held serve in 2024 as a deep-horizon catching prospect with a well-rounded toolset but a relatively maxed-out frame. After signing for just shy of $1 million last January, he slashed .258/.398/.348 in his DSL debut, with slightly more walks than strikeouts. Rojas is a precocious defender, especially his receiving. While he hasn’t been tested by plus velocity yet, he’s a good receiver and thrower who already has the squat physicality of a typical catcher. Rojas has advanced contact feel and slightly better power than is typical for a pro hitter his age. He isn’t likely to grow into much more power (there’s just not a ton of traditional frame projection here), so if Rojas is going to be a primary catcher eventually, it will probably need to come from him maintaining something like his 83% debut season contact rate.

Arias was one of the first couple of prospects from the 2024 international class who was widely known to have committed, but Eric’s notes from very early during that time period had him agreeing to a deal closer to $2 million; when signing day arrived, Arias signed for a little shy of $1 million. He only played 16 games in the 2024 DSL due to an injury but looked as advertised when healthy. Arias is a super projectable 6-foot-4, and he’s an above-average athlete with above-average bat speed. His feel to hit is somewhat questionable. In the roughly 20 swings that Eric sourced on video from various places, Arias’ swing is grooved for contact in the down-and-in portion of the zone, and it takes him time to get on plane with the baseball due to his lever length. He is still an exciting, high-variance prospect with plus power potential.

Sanchez signed for just shy of $1 million in January; he was the recipient of Toronto’s second-highest bonus and was the 28th-ranked player in the class. Power and arm strength are his carrying tools. He’s a bigger-framed left side infielder with potential strikeout issues. What elevates Sanchez toward the top of the 2025 signing group is that he has the power projection of many $1 million-ish bonus players, but a slightly better shot to remain at shortstop. He’ll begin his career in the 2025 DSL.

Santos has had trouble staying healthy and throwing strikes since his breakout 2022 season, and he seemingly transitioned into a relief role in 2024, though he made two starts to cap his season. The combination of Santos’ walks, injuries, and relative lack of physicality shift his projection to the bullpen here. He is a wispy, undersized righty who effectively has a sidearm slot, though Santos’ spinal tilt gives him more of a low-three-quarters look and pitch movement. This hurts the effectiveness of Santos’ fastball, which has “dead zone” spin axis in between one and two o’clock from the pitcher’s point of view. His best two offerings are his secondary pitches, and Santos should eventually be able to get big league outs by working heavily off of them. Santos pronates hard over top of his changeup, creating massive sink and tail. It, and his bullet-style slider, both generated plus miss rates in 2024. They split the plate in half laterally and are viable options against hitters of either handedness. Santos still needs to tame his walks; his rates have been in the 13-18% range at each level the last two seasons. There’s potential for Santos to be a platoon-neutral long man if he can operate more efficiently, but with his current control quality, he’s more in the up/down bucket.

Watts-Brown was a high-profile transfer from Long Beach State to Oklahoma State in 2023. He had a down draft spring, walking a batter every other inning and posting a 5.03 ERA. But his breaking ball quality was still so good, and Brown is such a smooth operator on the mound, that he ranked 56th on our pre-draft board. He fell to pick 89, signed for just over $1 million, and proceeded to have walk issues again in 2024. In 103 innings, Watts-Brown walked 60 guys, or 13.2% of opposing batters. He also K’d 28.9% of them, thanks mostly to the quality of his two excellent breaking balls. His 80-84 mph slider has power depth and consistent finish to JWB’s glove side, while he lobs a slower curveball into the zone for called strikes. The curve has enough depth to stay off the barrel even when it catches too much of the zone. Both size-wise and from a strike-throwing standpoint, Watts-Brown looks like a multi-inning reliever. That role would allow his lack of fastball command to be viable and enable him to pitch off his breaking stuff early in counts.

The oft-injured Brock had Tommy John in January 2025, the latest in a long line of injuries that has kept him from exceeding 35 innings pitched in any single season but one since he was in college. Still, when Brock is healthy, he’s nasty. The Blue Jays raised his arm slot after they drafted him, creating a nasty vertical attack. Brock sits 94-99 with backspinning ride, and has a plus-plus 87-89 mph slider with late action and depth. In 2023, his lone healthy season, Brock struck out 37.3% of opponents, mostly at Double-A. He looked great during the 2024 Arizona Fall League and seemed primed for an ascent to Toronto in 2025, but then the news of his TJ broke before players had really even reported for camp. He could rocket to the big leagues if he returns healthy in 2026, and he might have stretches where he’s a viable setup man, but at this point Brock’s grade has to be impacted by his health history.

Cooke experienced a gradual velocity increase in pro ball and annihilated High- and Double-A hitters in 2023, posting strikeout rates above 40% (!) prior to an end-of-year stint at Triple-A Buffalo. His fastball was averaging 96 mph early in the year before tapering off into the 93-95 mph range in September. In 2024, Cooke struggled and missed a big chunk of the middle of the season with injury. He had Tommy John in January of 2025 and will miss the entire season. Healthy Cooke looked like he had a shot to work in high-leverage spots. His drop-and-drive delivery and low release height helped his fastball play like a comfortably plus pitch because of its angle. Cooke’s sweeper command wasn’t dialed in enough for him to consistently illicit bad chases, but it has a ton of length and sometimes gets whiffs even when it isn’t located well because it looks like his fastball for so long. He’s now a middle relief name to remember for 2026.

Bohrofen was a famous Oklahoma high schooler who began his college career as a Sooner before he transferred to Arkansas as a sophomore. After a power breakout during his junior year, Bohrofen went in the 2023 sixth round and has had A-ball success in two pro seasons. In 2024, that meant 43 extra-base hits and a .254/.364/.433 line in 112 games at Vancouver. His swing is relatively grooved, and Bohrofen will likely run a comfortably below-average contact rate and batting average as he climbs the minors, but his swing is also geared for power and he has enough strength to do damage toward both gaps. The sneaky aspect of Bohrofen’s profile is his potential viability in center field. Though he’s mostly played right field, Bohrofen looks comfortable going back on balls hit over his head in center. It gives him a better shot to be rostered in perpetuity as an extra outfielder.

Fluharty, a soft-tossing southpaw, was an efficient long reliever in college, and even though he came from a mid-major program, the Blue Jays skipped him straight over Low-A, and he spent his entire second full season at Triple-A Buffalo. Fluharty’s velocity is way below the big league average, but his heater’s cut, and his command of it, help it clear the bar of viability. Fluharty’s best pitch is his slider, which he commands to induce chase, and which has huge lateral action in the 76-83 mph range. Aside from lesser velocity, he has the stuff of a low-leverage lefty specialist. He was called up just before list publication.

A hard-throwing senior sign, Jennings was up to 99 mph at Louisiana Tech but has tended to live several ticks below that so far in pro ball. In 2024, he was shifted into the bullpen mid-year and added a splitter to his repertoire. Jennings’ velo rebound into the mid-90s, and he’s been in the 94-96 mph range again during the spring of 2025. His plus-flashing mid-80s slider and splitter give him the weapons to deal with hitters of either handedness — if Jennings can command them. Lack of feel for location gives him more of an up/down look, but that’s better than Jennings looked as a miscast starter.

Tolhurst was a junior college prospect committed to San Jose State when the Jays popped him fairly late in the 2019 draft, and he didn’t pitch until 2022 due to the pandemic and injury. Aside from his brief post-rehab pro debut in 2022, Tolhurst has K’d a batter per inning at every level and kept his walk rates down in the single digits, with a 30.1% K% and 5.6% BB% across 59.2 innings split between High- and Double-A in 2024. His velo is up a tad this spring, as Tolhurst has more often been in the 94-96 mph range, and his slider has been straddling the 90 mph mark. Nothing here is overwhelming, but Tolhurst has four distinct pitches and throws strikes. He should be a reliable up/down option at some point in 2025.

McAdoo had a breakout 2024, as he slashed .279/.364/.479 with 17 homers split between High- and Double-A; he was traded from Pittsburgh to Toronto for Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the deadline. McAdoo is a data darling whom ZiPS really, really loves — it has him forecast as a 2.4-2.9 WAR player across the next three seasons — but there are a couple of things about him that the computer doesn’t quite realize, with the first being that he is likely to settle in as a first base-only defender. Dating back to college, C-Mac has experience at every position but shortstop and catcher, and he has played mostly third base and the outfield as a pro, but he’s a heavy-footed athlete who projects as a 1B/LF type of defender, raising the bar he’ll need to clear on offense. We’re also worried that the upward trend in strikeouts that McAdoo has exhibited as he has climbed the minors (15% in college, 20% in A-ball, 25-30% in Double-A) is indicative of his future performance. His swing is very vulnerable to elevated fastballs and mid-90s velocity, which he’s going to see more and more of. Though scouts who saw McAdoo in Florida this spring think the Jays have made some changes to his swing, we have McAdoo projected as a sub-70% contact hitter in the big leagues. He has enough power to be a role player of some kind even if that’s true, though it makes it more important that he develop at some combination of third base and the outfield to fit on a roster.

Pinango is a TrackMan darling who looks very exciting in basically every column of the spreadsheet. His contact (78%) and hard-hit (41%) rates were both above average last year. His slash line was more meager looking — .239/.331/.389 — but still good enough for a 111 wRC+ from a 22-year-old at Double-A. Though Pinango also cut his chase in 2024, his overwhelming tendency to be late on fastballs has us skeptical that this level of performance will continue. A little bowling ball of an athlete, Pinango is a corner-only outfield defender, and he needs to access power to play a part-time role against righties. He has modest projection as an above-replacement player because his data is fairly strong.

Ontario’s fastest native son can flash 80-grade run times out of the right-handed batter’s box when he tries to bunt himself on, and in 2024, he finally posted his first efficient basestealing season (35 of 39) to pair with rangy defense that already had the potential to carry a fifth outfielder/pinch-runner role.

Brown was drafted in 2019 but still doesn’t turn 24 until September, and he has made a host of gains from his super-raw offensive origins. He maintains below-average chase rates even when he’s behind in the count, and he has physically matured into nearly average raw power despite his sprightly speedster size. With a career .241 batting average and lengthy adjustment periods at every level, you almost wish Brown would commit to a slash-and-dash style. His grooved swing limits hard contact to pitches located middle-away and keeps his strikeout rate elevated despite his zone discipline. It’s not a hitting style that makes much use of Brown’s elite speed, but offense isn’t what’s likely to get him some extended cups of coffee anyway.

A career .290/.382/.486 hitter at Florida, Rivera was nonetheless a glove-first prospect coming out in 2023. He began his career with the Cubs but was traded to Toronto along with Yohendrick Pinango as part of the Nate Pearson swap. At Double-A last year, he struck out 28.5% of the time and slashed just .169/.261/.240 combined between the two orgs. Rivera’s swing is so long and uphill that, barring a significant mechanical overhaul, he is going to be K-prone hitter. But his defensive ability at shortstop (Rivera has a monster arm) and the power to run into the occasional extra-base hit gives him a floor and should enable him to be a fringe 40-man guy.

Duran is a backup catching prospect who was acquired from Miami as the PTBNL in the trade that sent Jordan Groshans to the Marlins for Anthony Bass and Zach Pop. He has performed well from a strikeout and walk standpoint in the lower minors, but realistically, the undersized Duran’s offensive output is going to be meager. Still, Duran (who catches from a traditional crouch with runners on base, an endangered species) can really throw (he’s remarkably accurate) and has sensational hands. He needs to get stronger at the catch point to improve as a framer, but Duran’s throwing and ball-blocking are both plus. He had modest success as a hitter in Low-A (97 wRC+) in 2024. The 2025 season is his 40-man platform year, but Duran is going to be a slower burn who is more like two or three years away from being rostered.

Peterson signed for what was essentially $25,000 over slot in the 2023 draft’s final round, an indication that he was actually a priority for the Jays rather than a 20th round afterthought. In his first pro season, he generated profoundly interesting, albeit very wild, results, as Peterson struck out 91 hitters in 49.2 innings split between both A-ball bullpens, but also walked just about a batter per inning. Peterson’s low-to-the-ground delivery and sidearm slot create extreme uphill angle on his fastball, which also has uncommon velocity for a sidearmer’s heater. It’s generating an elite swing-and-miss rate even though it has roughly average velocity. That pitch is Peterson’s bread and butter; he’s throwing it about 80% of the time. His slider has lateral wipe but lacks depth, which is typical for a low-slot guy, as it’s tough to get on top of the baseball from there. Currently a wild one-pitch prospect who projects as an up/down reliever with his current skill set, if Peterson can hone his control, he’ll be a solid middle inning option.

Bonds transferred from Chipola JC (FL) to Lafayette for a single season and blew out during a postseason game against TCU (he threw four more pitches after he felt his elbow go). The Blue Jays took him knowing he’d spend most of his first full season rehabbing, and Bonds returned at the very end of the 2023 season. In 2024, the fiery righty pitched well at both A-ball levels with his deceptive, open-striding vertical delivery, his riding low-90s fastball (20 inches of IVB from an average release height), and a good breaking ball that morphed from a curveball to a slider throughout the summer. He can create inconsistent action on a changeup that was barely there when Bonds was in college. Bonds’ fastball ride is the foundation of his profile, and he was a clear arrow-up performer in 2024 with obviously different stuff and a fleshed-out pitch mix. Plus, his on-mound demeanor is a great bullpen fit. He’s has a bottom-of-the-40-man look right now and might be more than that if the changeup keeps getting better.

The Jays gave Shaw a little more than a quarter of a million to sign as a ninth rounder in 2023 and he spent 2024 back on the complex, where he posted one of the better contact rates on the FCL circuit. He walked much more than he struck out and posted a 91% in-zone contact rate. Shaw’s hitting hands are quick and authoritative, and he moves the barrel around the zone in a much more advanced manner than is typical of most Canadian teenage hitters. But Shaw’s defensive home is unclear. He played second base after signing but center and left field in 2024, and his speed is a better fit at the latter position. He lacks the power for a corner spot and is on the smaller, stockier side. Shaw remains a hit tool sleeper who’ll probably need to be a 70-grade contact guy to profile in left.